Kids started to jump up from their seats, ready to get out of the classroom. It was the end of the day and no high schooler willingly wanted to stay in school, even if the school was Midtown Tech in Forest Hills, Queens. Every one of the students there was a gifted student, who had scored high enough on the entrance exam in order to get in. It was a fairly prestigious school and it had a magnet program to attract kids from all over the boroughs. Some parents had even opted to move their entire families so that their child wouldn’t have to travel far to get to the school.

As the volume level in the room increased, there was one voice that was able to cut above the noise and be heard.

“Ms. Pope, if you would please?”

Jessie Pope closed her eyes, wondering what it was this time. Grabbing her book bag, she made her way up towards the front of the class. She was dressed in a red tank top and black jeans and her blue backpack went up over one shoulder.

“I was quiet today.” She said. “I didn’t interrupt.” Jessie said.

“I know that.” Her teacher said. The older woman looked down at her table for a moment. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay, considering…everything’s that happened.”

Jessie nodded. “Death happens.” She said. “My grandfather was a great guy, he fought in World War II.” She said. “The funeral was nice.” Jessie added, as if she knew she needed to say something to make the teacher ignore the rather clinical view of death Jessie had. It was something that happened, as she’d said. She had known her grandfather, had known him pretty well, but she’d known that he wasn’t in the greatest of health.

“Right.” Her teacher said, a little confused at Jessie’s tone. “Well, I’m sure you have to get to your next class.” She said.

Jessie nodded and started walking towards the door. As she got there, she turned back, her eyes alight. “Wait, do you know if the Iron Man tech is going to stay?” She asked. “I heard a rumor it might be getting sent to Stark.”

“No, the suit is staying. You’re not allowed to work on it, you know that right?” Her teacher asked and Jessie nodded.

Basilides Wu scrunched lower in his chair. He was often the target of bullying, so this wasn’t new. But as he looked over the shoulder of the much larger person attempting to converse with him, he noted this was a new time of the day for it to happen. Generally speaking, he had found in his studies of the Midtown Tech bully that they didn’t tend to bother him once the school day was almost over. No, statistically, 95.6% of any and all bullying he would encounter during the day took place before two o’clock post meridian. This was simply out of character. He sighed, knowing that the torment of the teasing would soon end, and he could go back to what he was doing. Sure enough, it didn’t take that long for the bullies, who were repeat customers, for sure, to see that Basilides was not game for the teasing, and they quickly departed.

Without a word, he opened up his notebook and pulled out his trusty No. 2 Black Mirado Warrior pencil, sharpened to a point, and got to work. He was behind schedule. His science fair project was in need of a retooling and the deadline was approaching. He turned the pages until he reached the sketch he had been roughly working on during lunch.

A repulsor enabled ice cream truck.

This was something society most assuredly needed, and Basilides was determined to make it work. It took a lot of electricity to power a repulsor. It took a lot of electricity to keep ice cream cold. But to do both at the same time, while also not relying on fossil fuels?

Well, this was going to be his crowning achievement.

The door to the classroom opened and he looked up, as Jessie Pope walked in. She wasn’t late, not yet, but she was cutting it close. She stopped short in her walk, next to him, and looked at his drawings.

“A repulsor ice cream truck?” She asked.

He nodded, returning to his work. His pencil slid across the page, graphite making its mark precisely where he wanted it to. Basilides was not one to waste time, not when time was precious, the only thing they couldn’t really make more of.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard of Basil.” She said.

“Weren’t you talking about making a machine that would streamline taco production?” He asked, without looking up.

“Yeah, but everyone likes tacos.” Jessie replied, as she sat down next to him. No one is taco-intolerant, but people are lactose-intolerant.” She added, as she took her books out of her bag.

“They make ice cream without milk. And what about people who have to be gluten-free?” He asked, as the bell rang.

Jessie looked over at Bas, pausing as she ate her sandwich. “Tuna is gross.” She said, looking at his lunch, which was tuna wrapped in slices of lettuce. That got no response from him, so she decided to up the ante a bit. “Tuna is gross.” She repeated. “People who eat tuna are gross.” She added, with a shrug.

“Today is Wednesday. It’s tuna day.” Basil replied, as if that explained everything. Despite the scathing attack, he had not bothered to look up. He was busy at work, looking over sketches of things he was working on. His fingers paused on one of the pages, as he slowed his review. “Say, what are you doing after school?” He asked, his voice inquisitive.

Her brow furrowed. He knew what she was doing, why was he asking her? “It’s Wednesday.” She said. “I was going to work on our science project, like we always do on Wednesdays.” Jessie replied. “Why, what’s up?”

“Exactly.” He said. “Because it’s Wednesday.” He said and pointed at the tuna wraps.

Point to Mr. Wu.

She just laughed. The lunchroom at Midtown Tech had televisions set up in different places, each showing different channels. One of them caught her eye, it was a news report about S.H.I.E.L.D. apprehending a scientist who had been conducting some kind of violent experiment on animals. That was messed up. She kept watching for a bit until Jess realized that Basil was waiting for her to concede the point to him. They were known in the school for their…unique personalities, which was a mild way of putting it. But the two of them worked well together because their personalities meshed together playing off of each other. Both had a general no nonsense attitude about things. Even though Jessie did like to needle him.

“Fine, fine.” Jessie said, looking down at her watch.

It was almost time for lunch to end. “I’ve got advanced economics after this, I’m going to head out.” She said, starting to shove her lunch back into her bag. She knew that he had a free period after this and then he had his art history class. After her advanced econ class, she had her foreign language class, Latin. And after that, the day was done. Some days Jessie and Basil had an extra class, due to their allowance to take more credits than regular students. They were two of the best at Midtown Tech. But today was Wednesday as Basil kept pointing out.

“I’ll meet up with you after school in the lab, and we can fine tune the project. We need to make sure it’s done by next week; you know that right?” She asked and Basil just nodded. She sighed, reaching over and smacking his hand to get his attention. “We were late last year and that’s why we didn’t win.”

“That’s not why we didn’t win.” Bas replied, shaking his head. “It’s because your calculations were off on the equation for the distemper formula. My delivery system was fine. Your distemper formula was off and-“

“Okay, okay, animal genetics and DNA isn’t my forte, I get it.” Jessie said, grumbling. “I’ll see you later.” She said and Basil waved her off.

Pushing the door open, Basil walked into the small lab that he and Jessie shared. It wasn’t a large lab, but they had a decent space for testing things when they wanted to. All the students who were in advanced classes had their own labs, but they had to have partners due to the school needing to save space. Basil and Jessie had been lumped together on their first day of starting advanced classes, and had become friends since then. They worked well together.

One side of the lab was fairly neat and organized, the other far messier. Basil walked over to the neat and organized side and sat down at one of the chairs. This was his side, which made sense. Jessie had posters of Tony Stark, Ethan Drake, and Alex Burke up on the wall. One side of the lab was completely plastered, with some of the posters overlapping. She’d run out of space long ago in the area Basil had designate as the poster space.

In comparison, his side was relatively clean. He had a few posters or things up on the wall, but all of them were directly science related, or dry erase boards that he needed to use for his work. But he did have something in there for fun. He wasn't a monster, as Jessie sometimes claimed when they discussed these sorts of things. Bas reached out next to the keyboard of the main terminal and bopped the Bruce Banner bobble head he had. It was beaten up due to how old it was. It was also autographed. By far it was one of Bas’ most prized possessions.

“So I talked to the head of the department.”

He turned as Jessie walked into the lab.

“It turns out all the gear is officially on permanent loan from the Maria Stark Foundation.” She said. “This is awesome.”

He nodded. “I was worried they were going to pull it all. We’ve had it for a while.”

Jessie stopped in front of her terminal and pressed a few buttons. Part of the wall in front of her slid away, revealing a hidden chamber. Lights flicked on and a glass tube emerged from the depths. Floating, suspended in the tube, was the Iron Man Mark IX armor and pieces of the Iron Lad Armor 1.1. “I still can’t believe it sometimes. The last armor Ethan Drake wore.” She said. “It’s incredible.”

“Shall we get to work? Your project on the armors might I remind you, is extra-extra curricular work.” He said.

“Um, I’m sorry, my whole ability to graduate from this place is based around my work on the Iron Man armors.” Jessie said, turning and narrowing her eyes at Basil.

“Which is immaterial to me.” He said. “The only thing that matters is our science fair project. We must win this year. Victory, Jessie. Victory.”

Jessie walked into the apartment where she lived. Setting her backpack down on the couch, she walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a can of soda, before plopping down on the couch next to the backpack. It had been a long day and she was ready to unwind for the weekend. Jessie was about to open the can, when her mother came around the corner.

“You’re home early.” Grace Pope said. “I thought you were working on your science fair project with Basil.” She said.

“We’re in the home stretch. Decided to take an early night. Basil wanted to run some tests on this Geiger counter thing he’s building.”

Grace shook her head. Her daughter was incredibly smart, and that was probably putting it too simply. But Grace had never had a head for science the way her daughter did. “I know you guys work with a lot of technology, but don’t you think high school is a bit young to be working with radiation?” She asked. “What if something goes wrong?”

Jessie shrugged, opening her soda and taking a sip. “There’s a lot of fail safes. Stark, Wayne, Chase, they’ve all donated to the high school to make sure there’s a lot of safety.”

“I spoke with Uncle Jordan today.” Grace said, referring to Jessie’s uncle. “He said he’d spoken to a lawyer about your grandfather’s will. Something interesting that happened. We should go spend some time with them.” Grace said as she walked into the kitchen of the apartment and pulled out the meat she’d been defrosting. “Maybe when your father gets back from his business trip?”

Jessie smiled. Jasmine and Jordan were her favorite relatives. She knew times were tough for Jasmine. It wasn’t easy having a father in prison. Jackson Carver was in jail and he was going to be there for a long time. No matter how strong you were, that had to be tough. “I’d like that.” She said, drinking more. “How was work?” She asked.

“It’s IT work.” Grace said, mirroring her daughter’s smile and showing where Jasmine got it from. She opened the package and started the process of dinner. She was making tacos. “It’s not that complicated.”

“Coding is very complicated.” Jessie said. “We’ve had a few things break because of bad coding.”

Grace shook her head, as she pulled the shredded lettuce out of the refrigerator. “You guys have yet to win a competition, but I have faith in you.”

“Something always goes wrong at the last minute.” Jessie said.

“You guys will figure it out.” Grace said and looked over her shoulder. “Put on the tv, I want to watch the news.”